More

Gold has hit the target RBC's Edward Lashinski set, so where does he see it going now? Long-term, all the way down to $800. He explains his view to CNBC's Jackie DeAngelis and the "Futures Now" Traders.

When you're right, you're right, and Edward Lashinski of RBC Capital Markets was right on when he predicted that gold would go to $1,225. The yellow metal hit his bearish year-end price target in Wednesday trading. So where does the director of global strategy and execution for RBC's Futures Group see gold going next?

"I believe that most of the headwinds that were present remain, so I believe ultimately we could go to $800 to $900 an ounce," he said on Thursday's "Futures Now."

He then went on to outline the three reasons that gold could lose another third of its price.

The incredible rise of Japanese stocks, and the gut-wrenching correction that recently ensued, have only one parallel for Peter Schiff: The dot-com bubble of the late 1990s and 2000.

In both rallies, investors shifted away from accepted means of valuation, and were instead "deluded by fairy tales," Schiff said. As tech stocks skyrocketed, "We were told that valuations, revenue and profits no longer mattered."

And as Japan embarked upon a policy of massive quantitative easing, "monetary policy was seen as a substitute for an actual economy."

Now the Japanese Nikkei index sits nearly 20 percentage points below its late-May peak. But Peter Schiff, the CEO of Euro Pacific Capital, said it could get much worse.

"The Japanese government could quickly become insolvent," Schiff said. This would happen if Japanese bond yields continued to rise, for "if rates on the 10-year debt were to ever match the 2 percent of their inflation target, more than half of total tax revenue would be needed to service debt payments."

But Miller Tabak's chief economic strategist, Andrew Wilkinson, does not believe that Schiff's concern is a serious one. "My opinion is that it probably won't happen," Wilkinson said regarding Schiff's nightmare scenario.

"The nature of the Japanese bond market is that the majority of investors are domestic. So I don't see foreign investors throwing in the towel as being a big-picture driver here."

Beyond the intricacies of the Japanese bond market, Schiff and Wilkinson have a fundamental disagreement about economic policy.

Silver dropped 4 percent on Wednesday, adding further losses onto an unbelievably tough year for silver. While gold has fallen over 25 percent, silver has lost nearly 40 percent of its value.

Traders blame the fact that the inflation investors expected the Federal Reserve to create has simply not materialized. Now, with the Fed talking openly about tapering, a major reason to own these metals has been lost.

"There should be a bounce from here, but micro, macro, and momentum are still to the downside," Jeff Kilburg of KKM Financial wrote to CNBC.com. "The Fed has seen some decent data this week to support a tapering campaign earlier rather than later."

Rich Ilczyszyn believes that silver has more room to drop. "Hindsight is 20-20, but if you look back to when silver was $50, that was clearly a bubble," he said.

Gold is poised to break below $1,200 on Wednesday. As we previously predicted on CNBC's "Futures Now" blog, gold stayed in check until options expiration, but after Friday's expiration, the metal resumed its selloff.

On Monday evening, gold put in new lows, reaching below $1,250. And on Wednesday morning, we now see it just above our $1,221 support target, with a $1223.20 low. This is a fast market, and we have already seeing a bounce off of the lows—but we anticipate this to be short-lived. Our major downside target has always been and still remains $1,154.

Doug Kass says the market is ignoring some very serious risk factors. He reveals what the biggest problems could be, with CNBC's Jackie DeAngelis and the Futures Now Traders.

He's no longer short the market, but that doesn't mean Doug Kass sees smooth sailing ahead.

The president of Seabreeze Partners Management has long warned that stocks were set to suffer a correction. He recently foresaw the S&P 500 breaking below 1,595 to swiftly hit 1,560. Now that Kass has seen the requisite move, he has shifted his net positioning from short to neutral, and predicts a range-bound market over the next several months.

But Kass is still worried that the market could encounter massive downside—and that most are unprepared for it.

"My greatest concern," Kass told CNBC's "Futures Now" on Tuesday "is that there is almost a universal view that stocks have limited risk from here."

But for Kass, that is far from the case, because of the massive spike in interest rates the market has already seen—and which is widely expected to continue.

"It is unclear to me how the U.S. economy is going to handle a rise in rates," Kass said. He then outlined three reasons why higher rates could pose a major problem to the economy and the stock market.

Peter Schiff of Euro Pacific Capital argues that the Fed won't be able to taper quantitative easing -- actually, they'll have to increase it. He expects that will cause a "vicious" rally in gold.

It hasn't been an easy week for gold. It dropped over 6 percent on Thursday, and hit a nearly three-year low on Friday before recovering very slightly in early trading.

Traders blamed Ben Bernanke for the metal's collapse. On Wednesday, the Federal Reserve chairman announced that he was looking to "moderate" the Federal Reserve's bond-buying program "later this year," and to "continue the reduce the pace of purchases in measured steps though the first half of next year, ending purchases around midyear."

This signal that the Fed's quantitative easing program may be coming to a close spooked the stock market, but was even tougher on gold, which investors often hold to hedge against inflation. The expectation had been that quantitative easing would stoke inflation and thus be bullish for gold, but if quantitative easing is ending, a major reason to own gold has been lost.

"People are jumping to the wrong conclusion. They think the Fed is going to tighten—they're not. In fact, the next move from the Fed is to expand QE," the CEO of Euro Pacific Capital said Thursday on CNBC's "Futures Now."

Schiff believes that the U.S. economy cannot sustain itself without the quantitative easing—so the Fed will jump back in.

"The U.S. economy is going back into recession," he said. "The phony recovery that the Fed created is evaporating before its eyes."

After trading to new yearly lows and then falling below $1,320, gold on Thursday reached its lowest level since September 2010. Friday's session has seen gold enjoy a slight profit-taking bounce to retest a high of $1,301.70.

As the dollar rallied on Thursday, with the Dollar Index stretching back above 82, commodities across the board saw tremendous pressure in dollar terms. The Dollar Index was slightly negative on Friday, and you can expect a close below 82 to support gold. However, a retest of Thursday's highs and major resistance at 83 will be very bearish for the metal, as well as for other commodities.

Jim Iuorio had long thought that gold was going higher. Find out why he just turned bearish.

Bullion is feeling the pain, dropping well below $1,300 after Wednesday's Federal Reserve statement delivered a decisive blow to gold prices. The prospect of a more responsible Fed has led to a buoyant dollar and a sharp selloff in precious metals.

I have fought this move for a long time, but I've now come to a new conclusion. I finally realize that it's not a question of the Fed's level of accommodation—which is clearly high—but of how the Fed's policies compare with those of other central banks. Right now, the Fed is the one central bank that is considering tighter policies, and that seems good enough to keep weight on gold prices, even if those tighter policies are enacted at an undetermined time in the future.

Pimco's Tony Crescenzi gives his expert reading on what Chairman Bernanke will announce, with CNBC's Jackie DeAngelis and the Futures Now Traders.

It is the market's anxious question: Will Ben Bernanke roll down bond purchase? For Pimco's Tony Crescenzi, the answer is clear: "No."

"What we expect from the Fed is for it to suppress volatility, and it can do it on a number of ways," the Pimco market strategist and portfolio manager said Tuesday on CNBC's "Futures Now." One of those ways is to "indicate that the $85-billion-a-month is staying," Crescenzi said.

Crescenzi sees the quashing of volatility as a major goal for Fed Chairman Bernanke. "What the Fed has attempted to do is suppress interest rate volatility, and push investors ever-outward along the interest rate spectrum," Crescenzi said. "You could call Bernanke 'Mr. Volatility Suppressor.'"

Crescenzi believes a Fed message that scares investors is one of the few things that could actually increase bond yields right now—because Fed action is not imminent.

"When bond investors believe that the Fed will be on hold for long periods of time and sitting on interest rates like an elephant on an ant, the bond investors don't look for that extra yield for the uncertainty that exists for the policy rate, because we're not expecting the policy rate to move," Crescenzi said.

So as important as maintaining the pace of asset purchases is, Crescenzi believes the Federal funds rate is even more important. "The more important anchor for interest rates is that Federal funds rate, which is at zero," he said. He expects the Fed to reassure the market that "there will be a considerable time between the end of asset purchases, and the first rate hike."

The market is firing a buy signal, but a lot will ride on what Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke announces Wednesday afternoon.

The technical setup for a higher S&P looks good. Equities continued to trade higher, with the S&P closing above the 1,349 to 1,351 resistance in the June contract, but just below the 1,355 breakout level. We will now be using the September contract, which trades roughly 6 points lower than the June contract, and traded up to 1,648.75.

Wednesday's high is 1,649, as this aligns with the 1,655 line in the sand from the June contract. The market will likely stay quiet into the 2 p.m. EDT Federal Open Market Committee statement, and Bernanke's 2:30 p.m. news conference.

Take your trading to the next level with a platform that lets you trade stocks, options, futures and forex all in one place with no platform or data with no trade minimums. Open an account with TD Ameritrade and get up to $600 cash.